Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

[Koopaul]

I think the Kong-Pow will be gone in the next game just like the blowing mechanic is gone in this one.

[Chaoxys]

I've used Kong-Pow a bit, generally when things are starting to get hectic and I need to clear out the area, or when a boss fight is getting to be a bit too much and I need to be able to take a few extra hits.

[Sengir]

(if you mean that rare never really had much originality to begin with then ok i guess youre right on that note)

Wow. Just wow. Accusing Rare of all developers of not being original? Something tells me you aren't very well versed in their history prior to the Microsoft acquisition.

I'll admit the only Rare games I really played were Banjo-Kazooie and Diddy Kong Racing (which were both fun games!), but

looking at their games list, there's really no originality in any of their games or designs (save maybe Viva Piñata and Snake Rattle N' Roll). The Donkey Kong Country reboot series has way better designs for enemies (hypnotic tiki mask monsters vs anthropomorphic alligators).

Either way this game looks good and I wish I'd want a WiiU.

[Kosheh]

(if you mean that rare never really had much originality to begin with then ok i guess youre right on that note)

Wow. Just wow. Accusing Rare of all developers of not being original? Something tells me you aren't very well versed in their history prior to the Microsoft acquisition.

if you're talking about their catalog of games prior to starfox adventures, i hate to admit that i pretty much own everything that falls under that (save for killer instinct, which is a shame - it seems like a great series)

unfortunately, their originality stops at around killer instinct 2 (1996). it's kind of obvious in DKC3, when every level requires a unique gimmick in order to remain fresh
[and man, i feel like i have this convo once a week]

i'll be honest - rare was really good at developing things mechanically. level designs were great, and killer instinct was pretty solid. hell, we even got goldeneye.
shit man, they even gave us BATTLETOADS (and i am genuinely curious why rare hasnt even joked around with the battletoads IP) but yeah - as soon as Nintendo gave Rare more creative freedom, character designs really tanked.

DKC3. We got Kiddy Kong. :/ A baby who's able to pilot aircraft, expertly ride a variety of animals, and have the dexterity to climb a series of ceiling rungs using his hands...all before he can properly walk.

Then we had enemies who were basically this.

this is a character who had literally nothing wrong with his original design; which kicked a lot of ass in comparison.

These guys walked around, lanky as heck and put their hands above their head when they jumped. they were a little spooky, and it liked that. on top of that, they're wearing ARMOR. these guys are cool and know what's up
Instead, we received doofy alligators who jog their way across a platform to only be met with a blow to the skull from a monkey babysitter

And don't even get me started on Banjo-Kazooie.
Banjo was okay, Kazooie was...eh.
Then you had shit like this.
Topper, the most menacing carrot who jumps at you awaiting his shitty death. "Why was I reincarnated as a carrot of all things? Surely I have forsaken you, great deity of Banjo World" and worse than that

boss boom box was an actual thing

A BOX WITH GOOGLY EYES THAT TURNS INTO MORE BOXES WHEN YOU HIT IT

It's like Ken Lobb gave his daughter a bag of craft googly eyes and locked her in a daycare. "all right honey, design me some good badguys and then daddy'll take you out for ice cream"

diddy kong racing? yep


it's like rare has a penchant for creating literally the most forgettable casts within a videogame

[Koopaul]

Really now. Mario games stick googly eyes on a lot of things but it's not okay with Banjo?

LOOK A BOMB WITH EYES AND FEET!

Besides Banjo-Kazooie has an incredible list of characters and enemies that aren't objects with googly eyes.
I happen to really like Portrait Chompa. These guys always made me nervous.

The Donkey Kong Country reboot series has way better designs for enemies (hypnotic tiki mask monsters vs anthropomorphic alligators).

Its funny you should say that. Everyone seems to say the Tikis were boring wooden drums with no personality. People begged for the Kremlings to return. Could their designs be that bad if people loved and missed them so much?

[Kosheh]

Really now. Mario games stick googly eyes on a lot of things but it's not okay with Banjo?

LOOK A BOMB WITH EYES AND FEET!

The difference here is that nintendo actually took some effort to stylize each character so that it was different from the other (and its obvious source of inspiration). Like, a Koopa is a turtle and a Goomba is a zombie mushroom, but they took some liberties with each of them. Note the Bob-Omb is a wind-up toy with simple feet; the Goomba really got boned in the evolutionary process and the Koopa is weirdly bipedal, yellow and owns a pair of shoes.
Then, you have characters like Kooper and Parakarry, who they add articles and coloration to actually make them stand out against the other species of Koopa.

Besides Banjo-Kazooie has an incredible list of characters and enemies that aren't objects with googly eyes.
I happen to really like Portrait Chompa. These guys always made me nervous.

that's...fishbones with googly eyes. just a cartoon set of fishbones with googly eyes.

i think probably one of the most well-designed enemies from that game are probably the grublins

i can't tell what the hell this thing is, and that's a good thing

the grublin sailors and robin grublins kinda go in line with what i'm saying; apart from being a different-looking goblin in appearance, they literally look like a sailor or robin hood, with not much deviation from the source material and their bodies are literally humanoid. if they even had like, donkey kong's stature i'd be ok with that. but its literally a goblin but a people

The Donkey Kong Country reboot series has way better designs for enemies (hypnotic tiki mask monsters vs anthropomorphic alligators).

Its funny you should say that. Everyone seems to say the Tikis were boring wooden drums with no personality. People begged for the Kremlings to return. Could their designs be that bad if people loved and missed them so much?

now all i'm saying here is ironic because i love the kremlings, and like koopaul said, i kinda wished they'd return with a bit of a nintendo touch to them. like, if they returned in their king of swing glory, i'd be 100% totally okay with that

[psychospacecow]

When's this game come out again?

[Chaoxys]

When's this game come out again?

Last Friday.

[Koopaul]

I don't see how you can say one thing is stylized and not the other. You compliment the Koopa which is a bipedal turtle with shoes and that's good, but Timber is a bipedal tiger with a hat and that's bad? Is Bugs Bunny somehow a bad character design because he's just a cartoon rabbit?

As for Grublin Sailors, they have comically oversized jaws, while Grublin Hoods have a ridiculous overbite. And Portrait Chompa is not just a fishbone like... well... Fishbone. It's the skeletal version of whatever slimy thing the regular Chompa is.

[Zero Kirby]

So the reward for collecting all the KONG letters and doing all those Temple levels...

Totally worth it.

[Jermungandr]

I say history and you talk about Donkey Kong Country and Banjo Kazooie. You don't know how seriously close I came to writing an epic-length essay post educating you on the number of times Rare and its former name, Ultimate Play The Game, has revolutionized the gaming industry over the course of the Pre-NES through SNES era. In the end, though, I was just way too lazy to go through all the trouble of looking up hundreds of references; plus I doubt anyone would really care to read it anyways. Also, I don't want to come off as a fanboy, because while I feel they deserve respect for what they've done, I don't like them that much.

There is one thing that I feel absolutely compelled to touch on though:

unfortunately, their originality stops at around killer instinct 2 (1996). it's kind of obvious in DKC3, when every level requires a unique gimmick in order to remain fresh
[and man, i feel like i have this convo once a week]

Really? You make that argument every week, and that works for you? Because I can't see people leaving this as the end-all argument.

For starters, it's peculiar that you single out DKC3 specifically, because ALL THREE of the original Donkey Kong Country titles do this. Granted, the first game was a lot more subtle about it, but if you go back and play the game nowadays I think you will find that it too had a unique gimmick for essentially every level. As for the second game, well, that one is honestly probably more guilty of this sin than the third; if it can even actually be considered a "sin", which brings me to another point.

Your argument is basically that because they were capable of coming up with a unique gimmick for each level, that is evidence that they lack creativity. Quite frankly that statement is ... blatantly oxymoronic, for starters. The fact that they were able to include so many different ideas within a single game is if anything a testament to their creative prowess. And even if it wasn't, how are unique gimmicks keeping gameplay fresh throughout the game a bad thing exactly? Are you aware how many games - many of which are considered the best games ever made - you are dissing with that statement?

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I now present to you a list of games in which the majority of their levels - if not every level - has a unique gimmick:
- Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
- Super Mario World (SNES)
- Super Mario 64 (N64)
- Yoshi's Island (SNES)
- Wario Land 2 (GB)
- Wario Land 4 (GBA)
- Sonic & Knuckles (Genesis)
- Kirby Mass Attack (DS)
- Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
- Contra (NES)
- Every Mario Kart Game Post-SNES
- Every Zelda Game Post-NES

And those are only games that immediately come to mind without getting up from my computer; I could certainly come up with tons of more examples if I delved into my collection or simply did a bit of poking around in Google, but I digress for now.

(I honestly wish I could include some actual traditional Kirby titles on this list, but I'm defining "gimmick" as an element that changes up how players proceed through the game, and the more I think about it, the only thing that really changes in Kirby games from level to level is the layouts and visual aesthetics ... gameplay essentially always stays the same. Huh, that's kind of depressing actually.)

It's just ... such a weird thing to complain about. "Unique gimmicks to keep the game fresh" sounds like something someone would advertise as a positive trait for whatever game they're selling. To not desire that makes one sound like they want every game to be like the NES original Super Mario Bros/Bubble Bobble/Excite Bike scenario where each progressive level is just more of the previous levels with a different layout. I don't want each level of my Donkey Kong Country games being the just the first level of DKC1 repeated over and over with new layouts and different visual aesthetics. I want each level to have originality to them, and keep me on my toes. This is the reason we fell in love with these games in the first place, and the reason why the DKCR games continue to be strong today.

[Kriven]

Considering that Super Mario 3D World received praise around every corner for having a unique twist to every level, I don't see why it would be a bad thing for DKC3.

[Kosheh]

welp, that'll show me to post on VGR before 7AM

but
did you just

write an essay over a single line of my post? O_O

maybe i should have said "gimmicks where they change things up way too much to the point that it gets actually irritating"

DKC2 actually had a nice way of introducing gimmicks into each level, but each level's design eased you into each gimmick and it didn't feel weird. the one exception is the racing levels (but the racetrack light countdown is kind of an obvious indicator you're about to enter a race) and some gimmicks (like the seal) pop up in later levels to bring in interesting uses of said prior gimmick.

but then DKC3 had these completely absurd gimmicks in an attempt to keep each level fresh...which they weren't. like there's one level where you're using Ellie's vacuum nose mechanic to pull barrels, and then you never use it again. There's another level that just out of nowhere LIGHTNING STRIKES, and not until you're actually struck by it is there any indicator to keep moving. And then it never happens again. And then there's the level where the controls are reversed (literally the most irritating thing you can do, how anyone thinks this is a healthy mechanic in game design is beyond me) and finally, an entire level dedicated to jumping into a rocket and grabbing fuel. To be fair, these are mechanics you see late into the game - but I feel like there's a huge shortcoming in level design there.

Now, if there were three levels using the rocket fuel mechanic increasing in difficulty, or some transition in an earlier level that you jump into the wrong colored water and oops! your controls are reversed! - I wouldn't have even mentioned said gimmicks and said "oh, cool gimmicks, i love how you were eased into them" - nope, just one level where you have to deal with this bizarre gimmick and you never see it again.

Going off of assumptions here as I've only played a demo, but I'm pretty sure SM3DW uses similar things in their level design, but then you see parts of those gimmick levels spread out and rehashed in other levels (i.e. a wall-climbing level to be done in the catsuit power-up, and then wall-climbing segments throughout the game)

[Jermungandr]

Fair enough. I don't 100% agree with your assessment but it does make a lot more sense what you were getting at now.

Still, this is really more an argument about bad level design and trying to cram too many big ideas into a single game, rather than about them being uncreative.

[Gors]

I do stand on the "rare does dumb characters quite often" side though

They do their job of posing a threat/helping you activate an event but literally no characters in, say, banjo & kazooie, save the main/secondaty cast, are examples of good design

Lets face it, they used the googly eyes on many things and called it a day. Googly eyes on rocks, on ice cubes, on cauliflowers, on bee hives, on boxes. Then we get googly eyed termites, googly eyed animals and washing machines. They do work for what theyre intended, but ehhhh. Not really captivating. If anyone says thats not boring character design i swear i will draw googly eyed objects for my projects forever

What saves mario a little bit when dewign is concerned is that half the cast were created in the NES days. This meant three colors per character. How would you design a walking bomb in 16x16 3 color space?

On top of that, these basic looking characters are often treated as a race, so thers just no bob-ombs, we also have bombette for example. Also, they are redesigned eventually: see Mario Sunshine's bob-omb.

Now banjo, who had more ways of draw a character and still make them readable, just had random objects with eyes. I dont think its too fair to compare a n64 game with a series that originated in the nes. Its kinda like saying that mickey is boring compared to evangelion robots, in a way (if you know what i mean)

And even if you didnt consider the googly eyed characters, i can still affirm that humba wumba was an ugly piece of poop in the original game, before she got updated for nuts and bolts